Yang Xiu sank into a lotus position, immediately beginning to cultivate as soon as her master gave her and her brother leave to do so. Though she wasn’t an expert at cultivating yet, she was getting used to spending a lot of her time cycling, and the qi in the area around the special spirit wood felt different. More intense. Her cycling was more efficient. More effective.
She wanted to spend her day doing nothing but cultivating, but she also had to meditate on the fights she’d just completed. So, she limited herself to just two complete cycles.
Another three or four cycles wouldn’t hurt, though, right? Her master taught that, when an opportunity presented itself, you had to seize it. And what was the intense qi in the wood except for an opportunity?
Yang Xiu sighed. That excuse had merit, but it was nothing but an excuse. In truth, she didn’t want to meditate. Her master had pointed out that she had passed on loosing an arrow at a bear because it wouldn’t have been a kill shot. Because of her choice, Ru’er got injured. Because of her mistake.
She hated facing her mistakes. She hated even more that her master had to call her attention to it. Even though he told her that it was okay for her to err as long as she learned from it, she wanted him to be proud of her, not to have to correct her.
Compounding her mistake by not learning from it would be the true betrayal of her master, though. She would not sink that low. If he wanted her to learn from it, she would.
With that determination in mind, she sank into a meditative trance. Each and every use of her archery technique that day played and replayed in her mind. Each arrow loosed. Each hit. Each kill.
And each mistake. Times when she hadn’t moved perfectly. Times when she hadn’t stilled completely. Times when her arrow had been just a hair off, like her first shot against one of the salamanders.
Most of all, though, the one her master had drawn to her attention stood out. Clearly, Ru’er had no chance of stopping that bear. He was already engaged. If she would have shot it in the leg, it would have delayed the beast long enough for her brother to finish off the other one and strike the bear first, avoiding the injury.
Subsequently, she discovered two other opportunities where a shot she considered bad—one that didn’t result in a kill—would have resulted in either her brother or her master having an easier time.
Yang Xiu resolved to pay more attention to those situations in the future, and as that resolve solidified into the essence of her being, the figure representing her in her mind’s eye underwent a transformation. Her draws became smoother, her aiming more accurate, her stillness absolute, her power stronger. More importantly, the figure in her mind’s eye developed discernment, the ability to determine which shot was the most impactful.
Her eyes shot open. “Senior Brother Chao, is that…”
“Yes.” Her master grinned. “Congratulations. You have achieved mastery with the bow.” He paused. “I honestly thought it would take you longer than that, so for your diligence, a reward is in order.”
A reward? Her ears perked up.
“You still need to put in practice time with your bow,” he said. “Mastery does not mean perfection. There remains much room for improvement in your qi manipulation, using it more efficiently and getting more impact out of it, and your skills can regress if you go long enough without using it. That being said, you now have time to focus on other techniques, be it the spear or something else…”
Something else? That sounded interesting.
“Does Senior Brother have something in mind?” she said.
“I’m open to suggestion.”
Wow. That meant she got to choose a new technique. The possibilities were endless. Her mind spun. Obviously, she was limited to internal qi manipulation since she was still in the Qi Gathering realm. A movement technique would be useful, but her master had already said he wanted her to learn that on her own. Since she was focused on the bow, what made most sense was something that enhanced her attacks, and she vividly recalled how difficult it was to penetrate the scales on the Komodo Dragon.
“Can Senior Brother give me something to make my shots more powerful?”
“I could, but I’d prefer not to. There is no technique that will make your arrows strong enough to penetrate a rank three while you’re in the realm of a rank two. I could, of course, give you something that will take you to the peak of your current level, but you can reach that pinnacle simply by practicing. Same thing for increasing accuracy and speed. That all seems like a waste.”
As always, her master’s advice was most wise.
“Does Senior Brother have a suggestion?”
“Hmm. Honestly, the thing that will benefit you the most in the long run is better perception. At some point, you and your brother will be going on missions without me, and one of you will need to take the lead in finding spirit beasts. You’ll not be able to use your spiritual sense until Foundation Establishment, but learning how to enhance your vision, hearing, smell, and even taste and touch will serve you well for the rest of your cultivation career. Besides, it’s hard to hit a target if you don’t know it's there.”
That was something she would never have thought of on her own. Her master simply told them where every spirit beast was at any time, even the ones that should have been able to hide from them. If it were just her and her brother, they’d spend most of their day either looking for something to fight or wandering into ambushes.
She cupped her hands and bowed slightly. “This lowly disciple yields to Senior Brother’s wisdom.”
Her master shook his head at her use of third person, but the ends of his lips curled up slightly. “Very well.”
He got a far off look on his face, and his eyes darted rapidly around, a condition she was used to by now. Less than a minute later, he handed her a jade slip. She pulled the rank one beast core from her pocket that he’d gifted her long ago and cast her consciousness into the slip—the Peerless Peering and Perception Technique.
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Not for the first time, she wondered who named these techniques and how her master had access to them. But it was her master. He was supposed to be unfathomable.
The technique itself was exactly what he’d described. It allowed her to manipulate her qi to boost any of her senses or, once she’d progressed further, all of them at once.
As much as she wanted to practice her new technique, it was more optimal to cultivate as much as possible in order to take advantage of the environment. Of course, it took a while for her to settle down enough to get back to cultivating after all that excitement, but once she did, she lost herself in gathering as much qi into herself as she could, seizing the opportunity the wood presented.
The rest of the day passed quickly, and sooner than she would have liked, her master interrupted her at the end of a cycle to let her know that it was time to leave. Ru’er had apparently finished before her because he was waiting with her master.
There was obvious tension between them.
That strain was all her brother’s fault. Before all the mess with Fang Wei had happened, their father had been working to find them apprenticeships in the village. He drilled into them over and over again that a master’s word was absolute. They were not to talk back. They were not to think they knew better. They were to follow orders. Their future depended on it.
Yang Xiu always thought she would be the one to have a more difficult time with that than her brother of all people. He was always so stoic, a true put his head down and bear whatever came kind of guy. She couldn’t believe he had disobeyed a direct order in the middle of combat.
If Father were alive, he would have… Well, she didn’t know what he would have done, but Ru’er surely wouldn’t have liked it.
She was confident her brother would find his way back into her master’s good graces, but whatever punishment was dealt until then was well deserved.
Regardless, he took his place as directed by her master, and they began the trek back to the village. Due to the harvesters’ presence, the trip proceeded at an excruciatingly slow pace, and because the massive battle between her master and the rank three earlier, no spirit beasts dared come near them. It was a boring walk. Eventually, though, they reached the walls.
“Esteemed Master Cultivator,” Guang Yin said, “thank you for your protection.”
“Of course. We only did what was promised. How long do you think it will take to finish gathering the wood?”
“Six more days, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”
“Good. We’ll see you here tomorrow morning, then.”
With that exchange, the six villagers departed into the village.
“Senior Brother,” Yang Xiu said, “are Ru’er and I to go back to the inn?”
“No, you’ll come with me this evening. I want you to meet your future fellow sect members. You’ll be their senior brother and sister, charged with their protection, so it will be good for you to be familiar with them, especially Wan Ai.”
Wan Ai?
Yang Xiu rose her eyebrows in question.
“I hope you three get along well,” her master said. “She is to be an inner sect disciple along with the two of you.”
Another inner disciple?
“Will she fight alongside us, Senior Brother?” Yang Xiu said.
She barely left unasked whether her master expected the new girl to be a better fighter. And what would the girl do for a weapon. They only had the two. Yang Xiu was not giving up her bow.
“No. She’s a real treasure. I’m hoping she’ll become our alchemist.”
A greater treasure than Yang Xiu?
“Are her spiritual roots better than mine, Senior Brother?”
“She is your junior sister, Yang Xiu. Every person in the sect contributes in their own way. Yours is to fight so she doesn’t face danger. Hers is to eventually convert ingredients into pills to heal you and your brother and your other junior sisters and brothers and to create important resources you will need to make you stronger. Every person in the sect will perform an important function. We will all work together for each other. Understood?”
Yang Xiu deflated. Another mistake.
“Yes, Senior Brother,” she said.
“Good. Let’s go.”
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Mo Jian was expected a report on how the harvesting went for the day and told his servant to admit Guang Yin at once.
Upon entering the room, the man immediately cupped his hands and bowed. “I didn’t believe you, Honored Mayor, but you were right.”
Mo Jian hadn’t been worried until that point, but whatever the old fool had done was troubling enough to make him show proper respect. “What did you do?”
“That cultivator is more powerful than I would have believed. He detected every spirit beast along the path and directed his disciples to kill them well before they reached our sight. Then, when we got to the wood, he detected a large quantity of beasts led by multiple rank threes. I thought he’d promptly run back to the village and leave us behind. Instead, he took his disciples into the Wood. When one returned to get us, he had obviously been injured and led us to the scene of a great battle. The corpses of more than a dozen beasts were lying about, including a draconic rank three.”
Mo Jian grimaced. “And what did you do to make the situation worse, Guang Yin?”
The man at least had the decency to look abashed. “At first, I was … not as polite as I could have been. Then, I, maybe, openly doubted his abilities.”
“Did he kill any of your team?”
“No,” Guang Yin said. “He told me that he’d let my disrespect slide the first time, but if I offended him again, he’d destroy the entire village.”
Mo Jian’s jaw clenched. “You idiot! Why would you go out of your way to offend him after what I told you?”
Guang Yin got down on his knees and kowtowed. “I am an idiot. I thought I knew better. I thought he was fooling you, that he had somehow scouted the village or gotten the information about us. He doesn’t look like a Golden Core cultivator.”
“Looks can be deceiving, you old fool.”
“I know. Believe me, I know. It’s just that he doesn’t act like an old monster, either.”
“And you know so many old monsters such that you’d recognize them by their actions?” Mo Jian said.
The man had no answer.
“How much danger is the village in?” Mo Jian asked.
“I don’t know, Honorable Mayor. I have no doubt that he can destroy the whole of the village, but I don’t know if he will.”
Mo Jian shook his head. At least, the old fool had finally come around.
“What finally convinced you?” the mayor said.
“Besides his obvious spiritual senses and the combat prowess he and his disciples displayed, even his spatial ring is not ordinary. He gathered in corpse after corpse with no thought of not having room. Just the rank three would have filled a storage device that any normal member of the Righteous Rain Sect would have owned. A ring capable of holding all those beasts combined might be a treasure the sect ancestors would have coveted. But that’s not the only thing.”
Mo Jian’s face tightened.
“One of his disciples apparently gained mastery of her weapon technique,” Guang Yin said.
“Any idea of her realm?”
“Everything about both the disciples tells me they haven’t been cultivating for many months, from how long it takes them to sink into their cultivation trance to just the way they behave and how their master treats them. They cycle fast, though. Whatever cultivation method they have must be high, high tier. Both are obviously new, talented disciples.”
Mo Jian frowned. “Her obtaining mastery doesn’t tell us a lot considering all the combat experience they all obviously have.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the worrisome part. The master cultivator offered to gift her a technique. Bear in mind this could have all been staged for us, but he made it sound like he could give her any technique she wanted. Granted, he steered her to what he wanted her to get in the end, but it sure sounded like they all believed he could just give her a technique on the spot. And he handed her a jade slip.”
The ramifications were troubling. A wandering master cultivator with a high cultivation level and a couple of disciples was one thing. A master with an uncommonly large spatial ring, disciples talented enough to be coveted by most sects, and access to top tier cultivation methods and techniques indicated someone with resources and clout.
The mayor sighed. “You and your team are to work as fast as possible to get him the wood we agreed to, and you will all be as polite as if facing the Righteous Rain Sect Leader himself. I want this man and his disciples gone as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Honorable Mayor.”